


from a place of absolute control

by isoldewas



Category: The Morning Show (TV 2019)
Genre: Cory has a crush, F/M, a very one-sided me-the-author/Cory, goddamn it’s not the easiest show for this dynamic, one-sided Bradley Jackson/Alex Levy, wild season 2 projections
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-14
Updated: 2020-04-14
Packaged: 2021-03-02 01:07:59
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,181
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23646676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/isoldewas/pseuds/isoldewas
Summary: There’s been some noise recently. Fred’s stepping down. Cory hasn’t yet assumed Fred’s position, but that’s happening. The outfall is so amazingly loud, she can’t quite believe it. It’s the cut off in the broadcast, more than anything else, that did it. It’s the implication of the threat.So that’s why Bradley’s in Cory’s room at 9 pm on a Tuesday. She rolls her shoulders and clenches her jaw.
Relationships: Bradley Jackson/Cory Ellison
Comments: 6
Kudos: 44





	from a place of absolute control

**Author's Note:**

> this was written in a night and I stand by some of it

Honestly, it’s high time to blow some shit up. It’s been awfully stable, as stable as it ever gets at TMS, for two weeks now. Yeah, it’s chaos, but Bradley feels like she has a grip on it. Somehow, it’s worse than “Two-Fucks Jackson.” It’s just more of the same shit, day in, day out, on a loop.

“It’s a job,” Alex had said. It’s real now. 

There’s been some noise recently. Fred’s stepping down. Cory hasn’t yet assumed Fred’s position, but that’s happening. The damage to the network is indisputable, but they’re still riding out the rising curve rating-wise. So that’s what it’s like, in the eye of the storm. The outfall is so amazingly loud, she can’t quite believe it. It’s the cut off in the broadcast, more than anything else, that did it. It’s the implication of the threat.

And then there’s Marlon, who just never seems to shut up.

So that’s why Bradley’s in Cory’s room at 9 pm on a Tuesday. She rolls her shoulders and clenches her jaw. Something had to be done about Marlon.

“So, how much do you know?”

The thing is, Marlon is loud and inconvenient, and too much like salt on a wound that won’t stop bleeding. Also, now that the investigation results have been declared null, Chip is once again welcome in the building. It’s all very well contained.

Cory picks up his glass before setting it right back on the table. She holds his gaze steadily.

Cory’s been running interference with their plan to get Chip back. He turns away from her, gestures for her to get a drink. Bradley sees it for what it is. A tactical delay. She shifts in her chair uncomfortably, sparks of rage running down her spine. It feels like she’s being managed. She doesn’t like that either, how much of her is reacting to his lack of engagement.

“Because from where I’m standing, Cory, you’re stirring shit up. Again.” He looks back to his phone, frowns at the screen and types, more creases appearing between his eyes. Honestly, just seeing him up close like this: of fucking course he is. He has the resting face of someone planning a murder. 

“So?” Bradley raises an eyebrow to emphasize her point, her voice a pitch higher than usual. “Are you?”

He gives her a non-committal nod, still glued to his phone. She watches for the change in his face. From the way her words land heavy around them, she doesn’t think he’s allowed to keep his expression carefully blank. It’s her, for God’s sake. She wants to wave a hand in Cory’s face: _it’s me, Bradley, hello?! Say yes._

“We organized a coup, Bradley,” he finally speaks, looking up. “You can’t pretend to be scandalized.”

She feels her mouth curving in a grin. _Finally._ It’s not even the admission of guilt that arrives just two questions in. It’s that he’s on the defensive. If his answers are all mean and biting from now on, that’s fine with her. She brings her hands to her temples, covering her face.

“Fuck me,” she lets out, announcing his defeat in his stead. 

He scoffs at the words, more to himself than at her, yet the sound’s clear enough for her to peel her hands away. With an uncommon degree of certainty, Bradley knows exactly where that came from. With a laugh, he just turned her throwaway line into something. She wants to know, with that same certainty, that it will give.

She tilts her head and lets it sit between them. There’s a thing here she’d like to prove.

Cory finishes typing and throws the phone on the couch. The screen lights up before it hits the cushions, but Cory’s not looking. His eyes are all on her, and it’s almost nice. Maybe, if he pays enough attention, she won’t need to spell it out.

“No,” he breathes out on a laugh, clearly amused at the implication. 

And that, she knows. It’s easy to counter, it’s her job description: to get at the truth behind the words. 

“Yes,” she replies, her tone a parody of his, like explaining something in a language he’s sure to understand.

“No,” but Cory’s grinning at her with his straight white teeth and now it’s on the edge of something. Bradley can work with that just fine. She just wishes she were drunk. It’s easier to negotiate from that place of absolute control, two drinks in: a place with no doubt and little reservation. She doesn’t quite know how to get there without scotch.

More to the point, this, right now, is all her, and she’d really like to blame it on something. Bradley wants for the way she tilts her head and bares her throat to belong to a drunker, more exhausted version of herself. For the way his eyes light up to matter because she wanted to get laid all along, not because it’s him. That would be terrible.

Only she’s laid ground there, she realizes. This isn’t entirely out of nowhere. This is something she considered. Meant to happen. Might just get, given that Cory hasn’t done anything yet to break the silence.

She doesn’t like this want. It’s the fact that it makes a hypocrite out of her, that she not only wishes it but that she’ll go after it. It’s the grief she still won’t give way to. It’s that Bradley doesn’t have to explain. She doesn't know what to do with the fact that he’s just acknowledged her _yes_ without skipping a beat. 

Suddenly, she doesn’t want to blame it on anything anymore. There’s a lot of trust at stake here. For a second she thinks, this is what she came here for. To establish trust. There’s no way he’ll move before she does. So Bradley stands up. 

She steps up to him, shows her teeth, hopes he’ll accept that as a smile. Hopes he won’t. Maybe he’ll call her out on this, on everything she’s been doing ever since she got here. When she’s finally within the reaching distance, she touches his hand. He looks at her, wide-eyed and disbelieving for a second there, before it’s replaced with a flat expression. Now he’s the one waiting for something to give.

With impeccable precision, she presses his hand to her side, his thumb aligning perfectly with her hip bone. Cory raises an eyebrow, not really at her, more at the gesture. She’s not sure what she expected him to do after this. In a very straight-forward way, it’s supposed to be done now. You lay it out there for the taking, and just like that, it’s over with the tension.

His grip feels tight on her hip, fingers splayed over her shirt. He tugs at it, just a bit. She doesn’t see it happen, but she feels the fabric slip up. Cory stands up too if only to be able to get the corner of the hem out of her jeans.

It’s almost worse this way. Slow and unbearable and giving her time to reconsider. Bradley takes his hand in hers again, and he lets out a laugh again, near biting his lip. He glances up to look from their hands to her eyes, but she’s faster than he is. She places his hand between her legs and goes to undo her belt. She wants to be selfish with it; because how else do you do this?

He presses a finger to the seam, trails it along the zipper, to where she’s making quick work of the button. It strikes her that, despite the two weeks of virtually no communication, they are cooperating. She’s gotten so used to fighting everyone on everything. Bradley pushes her hips forward. She’s fighting him, right now. 

Cory reaches down to her cunt. It’s all soft pressure and entirely not enough, so Bradley leans in, this close to laying her head on his shoulder. She begins to rock against his hand. _Don’t be nice to me,_ she wants to say. _Ugh,_ she scoffs at herself. _Please only be nice to me._

The heel of his palm right against her clit, he stills, and she wants to tear his head off. The audacity— He slips his hand away from her, and she’s this close to screaming at him when he pushes her back a step, and then another one, and another one. That’s where the bed is.

“I mean, if this is happening, shouldn’t we—” He talks fast as if making up for lost time. 

Bradley collapses on the bed, props herself up on her elbows.

Cory kneels between her legs, and when she pushes up her hips he slides her jeans and underwear down. His hands feel hot and unfamiliar against her skin, as he trails them up her legs. She bends her knees, grabs a handful of the covers to keep her newly done nails from digging into her palms.

His mouth's on her hip bone and she thinks, if she glances down, he’s going to see, he’s going to know. So Bradley makes a trade. With him, with herself: she arches her back, but she keeps her eyes on the ceiling. She doesn’t want to see him smile between her legs, that won’t do anyone any good.

He pushes a finger inside her, finally, and at this point what does it matter that she came here to get a confession out of him. This is what she’s getting.

He adds another finger, and she can hear how wet she is. It’s been a while. It’s been three weeks. When he puts his mouth against her, she can’t remember why it’s been three weeks exactly.

She has trouble just laying there, wants something else, something more, again. A change of pace, a way out of the manageable chaos. Cory manages to place an elbow on her thigh, pushing her down.

 _Finally._ Bradley arches up just to feel the weight of his arm against her. The hunger in him, he wears on display. The hunger in her is barely contained, threatening to blow up. If it’s not more, it’s the truth, and if it’s not the truth, it’s chaos.

No wonder he likes her. 

She tries for a new approach. Just like in that yoga practice: energy in stillness or however they put it last Thursday when Alex and Bradley tried it out on set.

_Alex._

There’s a noise in the back of Bradley’s throat, like Alex’s name, which— right about now equals suicide, so she swallows it whole, both the sound and the image of Alex on the yoga mat that’s stuck behind her eyes. There’s nothing to be done about that now.

So then what if she’s restless in this too? Where she could be anything, where she thinks Cory would accept anything with a manic grin, Bradley shudders against his hands and can’t determine what comes after this. She catches herself running fingers through his hair and immediately stops. So does he.

“Say something,” he asks, low and unaffected.

Not that she doesn’t have a lot to say, she just doesn’t know where to start. She can’t talk about Alex. She can’t say shit about the coup they’re staging to dethrone Marlon. They might not end up on the same side of it, and she doesn’t want it to be a whole thing. _(“How did he know,” they’ll say and she won’t tell them anything, she just won’t—)_ Bradley throws a hand over her head.

“I hate this job, sometimes.”

Cory chuckles at that, and then he smiles, and for a hot second, it just looks like it’s really funny all around.

“No, not like that,” he almost giggles, his grip on her thigh slacking. “Don’t be funny like that.” He plants a kiss on her hip and gets back to it.

When she speaks up again, she’s going for the dramatic. 

“I ruin,” she says, losing the _everything,_ desperate for words. She doesn’t even think she believes it. “And everyone’s there,” she swears it’s not her voice, “Picking up the pieces.” Maybe she’s still angling for the truth she came for.

“And then there’s you, getting off on it.”

His grip falters, and for the first time, she looks down to him, catching his eyes. His shirt is all wrinkled now. He shakes his head.

“I just feel so seen,” he says, amused and earnest and very inconvenient, coming from him. Cory’s mouth twists softly into a familiar grin that’s completely unbecoming right now. There’s uncertainty about it too. Maybe he didn't notice. Or she’s seeing things, won’t be the first time either— 

Maybe that's exactly where he wanted her to end up.

He keeps looking at her. “Do you think it’s going to feel weird at work now?” 

Bradley starts laughing. 

“This here, uhm, is a family—” Marlon says, making a gesture with his hands, like he’s trying to hug all of them from afar.

Behind him, Cory looks up from his phone. The corner of his mouth goes up. And then he stares back at her.

**Author's Note:**

> this 2nd rewatch made shipping trash out of me


End file.
